In the dialogue and often diatribes between creationists on one side and evolutionists on the other, the politically correct and often repeated maxim of truth is: “it’s not the how or why, but it’s the who, namely God.” Since that has already been well-established, I’d like to venture to the dark waters, to the Why and the How, under the belief that there is some middle ground here and that by limiting our conversation, we limit our understanding of not only who God is, but what God is doing in the world.
First the Why, which has never been said better than by Annie Dillard, author, ecologist, theologian:
“Of all known forms of life, only about ten percent are still living today. All other forms—fantastic plants, ordinary plants, living animals with unimaginably various wings, tails, teeth, brains—are utterly and forever gone. That is a great many forms that have been created. Multiplying ten times the number of living forms today yields a profusion that is quite beyond what I consider thinkable. Why so many forms? Why not just that one hydrogen atom? The creator goes off on one wild, specific tangent after another, or millions simultaneously, with an exuberance that would seem to be unwarranted, and with an abandoned energy sprung from an unfathomable font. What is going on here? The point of the dragonfly’s terrible lip, the giant water bug, birdsong, or the beautiful dazzle and flash of sunlighted minnows, is not that it all fits together like clockwork—for it doesn’t, particularly, not even inside the goldfish bowl—but that it all flows so freely wild, like the creek, that it all surges in such a free, fringed tangle. Freedom is the world’s water and weather, the world’s nourishment freely given, its soil and sap: the creator loves pizzazz.”
Think about it: the creator loves pizzazz. The creator desired for creation to come forth, and it was so. We are here first and foremost by God’s choosing, God’s initiation, God’s will. Which leads us into the second, the How…
I found myself steeped in an incredible book this week from a professor who, at the end of his career, has taught me and, at the start of his career, taught Pastor Pike. We both share a deep respect for him. Dr. Terrence Fretheim, Old Testament scholar and writer of God and World in the Old Testament, shares with us his knowledge, his understanding, his 40-year career of studying creation, our genesis, with great depth and wisdom. The buzzwords for Dr. Fretheim are relationship and community.
1. God uses already existing matter in creating
God created the light and then the separated the light from darkness, then cleaved the ground from the sky and the water. A little later on in chapter 2, we hear that God came down and stood upon the ground, upon creation, stooped down to the earth, took up some dirt into his hands and formed Adam. God got dirt under his fingernails and human beings were created out of an already existent creature, in this case, dirt.
2. God calls upon already existing creatures to bring about new creation
God invites creation to participate. We hear God say, “Let the waters bring forth”…and the waters brought forth. Creation is the subject of the creating verb. What’s more is that a non-human – water – is the one bringing forth new creation. Non-human creatures are called upon to enable future creativity. This points to God’s power in self-limitation, holding back and allowing creation itself to participate in creative activity.
3. God invites the divine council to participate in the creation of the human
God discusses the creation of humankind with creatures that are not God. In Genesis 1:26, when God says, Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness, he is thought to be speaking to the divine council, the heavenly assembly that goes to work with God and for God. God appears to be a social being, one who works within a community. To be made in the image of God is to be a social, relational, communal. Genuine interaction and interdependence are a characteristic of God’s creative activity.
4. God involves the human in still further acts of creation
The number one word associated to God in the first chapter of Genesis is create. It would make sense, then, that those made in the image of God are called also to create. God leaves it to the human to continue creation.
The future of creation, which is ultimately, we trust, in God’s hands, is presently and for the time being primarily in ours. Creation is still happening! But what will the future hold? And why does this understanding, this belief about the way things have come to be have anything to do with the way things will be?
In one of his most seminal works, Martin Luther says, “what we believe actually affects what we do.” The human vocation, founded in our creation in the image and likeness of God, is to model the creative actions of God. We humans were made in the image of God, called to be God’s representation, God’s figure, God’s hands in the world and if we believe that God created the world as a power-mongering, non-relational, distant or transcendent God, one who creates without effort, from the outside, then we are more likely to take our vocation for dominion of the earth as ones called to subdue through force and conquest.
But if we take a step back, catch a glimpse of God’s vulnerability in creation, which by no means take away from God’s “God-ness,” if we open our eyes to see a God who is vulnerable and at the same time powerful and strong, present yet somewhat distant, mysterious and still somehow known, somehow both inside and outside of creation, we will see that our vocation, our calling to be the image of God in the world is as humans who work with and for creation as if our lives and our futures relied on it, because it does.
Human beings are given responsibility for creational development, bringing the world along to its fullest possible potential. God uses you to bring about his future, and what you do, what we all do, matters to God.
As such, the rhythm that takes place in God’s song is creation, redemption and new creation. The new creation that God is working for, that we are moving towards, takes into consideration that which happened in between God’s original creation and God’s future new creation, which breaks into the world as news of redemption, gospel truth brings new life, abundant life, full life.
God’s creation is built to go somewhere and it takes into consideration what happens in the meantime. What happens to us now, what we do now, matters, not only to us and to others, but also to God. You matter to God. What you do and who you are matters to God, the one who will remember you when you are long gone, when there is no one left to remember you. God, who works his future, works his will out from your present, out from your past. This matters, this makes a difference. This is a great well of grace, for God is with you and for you and perhaps despite your best efforts, God is always working the best for your life and the future of creation, and thanks be to God, the creator loves pizzazz!
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